Ford missed more than two hours of city council’s meeting Thursday for a high school football playoff game between the Don Bosco Eagles - the team he coaches - and the Father Henry Carr Crusaders.

The game - which the Eagles won 35-0 - was ended due to a brawl that saw Toronto Police called to the scene and a TTC bus called in to transport Ford’s team back to their school.

Ford returned to the council chamber just in time to give a speech slamming the master agreement between Metrolinx and the city to spend $8.4 billion of provincial money to build four light rail lines.

Several councillors blasted Ford for leaving a city council meeting to go coach particularly after, as the Sun reported first last week, he was scolded by his allies not to leave council or committee meetings for the football field. Ford made headlines back in September when he left an executive committee meeting hours before it was over to coach his team at a scrimmage.

Ford defended his time on the football field when approached by reporters at City Hall.

“If I wasn’t there it could have got really ugly,” he said. “I controlled my team, very few people can control these kids.”

The mayor said the police called for the TTC bus.

“The police were there, they did a good job, that’s exactly what happened,” he said. “We had to get out of their field and the police made that call.”

As the head coach, Ford said he had to be at the game.

“It was semi-final football game, it was the playoffs, we’re undefeated, we’re number two in the city, we’re in the championship game,” Ford said.

“If I’m (not) there what are we going to do, just forfeit the game? These kids live, this is their education that rides on these games.”

“You don’t have a head coach, you’re going to play a game? ... If I got hit by a car obviously someone would have to do it but as the head coach it is an irresponsible thing to do and if I wasn’t there things would have gotten out of hand.”

The mayor stressed he’s made a commitment and “I’m not a quitter.”

“My coaching responsibilities, I’ve said this from day one, I’ve made a commitment, I’ve done it for 20 years and I’m not changing,” Ford said.

Toronto Police Const. Tony Vella confirmed police responded to Henry Carr before 4 p.m. after the coach of Ford’s rival team “got into a dispute with one of the referees.”

Vella said there was no evidence of a crime and no charges were laid.

Asked why police called for a TTC bus to transport the Don Bosco team, Vella said it was “due to weather conditions.”

“It was cold so an officer contacted (the TTC) to have a bus transport them back home,” he said.

TTC spokesman Brad Ross said the bus was pulled from a nearby route at the request of police and returned to its route around 45 minutes later.

“We get requests from police for buses to act as shelter, for example, not infrequently,” Ross said. “We complied, as we always do when such requests are made by police.”

Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday said Ford’s absence for football makes it harder to keep the mayor’s team on council disciplined.

“Leadership has to come from the top,” Holyday said.

“I personally don’t think he should do that but that’s up to him.”

But Holyday pointed out councillors have dragged out the council proceedings over three days.

“This council meeting should have been over (Wednesday),” he said.

Councillor Mike Layton said it is admirable Ford is working with kids but he should have been at City Hall.

“We had a pretty important item on the agenda that I would have hoped he would have done his job as mayor and been here for,” he said.

“His enthusiasm is admirable but he should have been here doing his job as mayor.”

Councillor Joe Mihevc said coaching is Ford’s “primary commitment”.

“The mayor has shown himself to be supremely incapable of any learning from experience,” Mihevc said.